Toru Hamada

Biography

Toru Hamada
(born in 1953, Matsuyama, Japan)

Orphan, born in a modest family, he draws and sketches the Shiroyama Mountain, then discovers Rubens and Michelangelo and copies their works  a thousand time to acquire their technique. ?The dream itself isn?t enough, it needs  courage to seek for it !? the artist says. He was not accepted to the University of Fine Arts in Tokyo, probably because of his rebelious mind, so he left Japan in 1972 to move to Carrara (Italia), after a short stay in Paris. He graduated from la Scuola di Marmo, in Carrara.

When one discovers the painting of Toru Hamada, he is struck by the intensity of the colours on his works. On the falsely plane surface of his paintings, bright colours answer each other with a subtle game of superpositions and unexpected contrasts.

According to Hamada, painting isn?t only a layout of flat tint of colours assembled together in a spontaneous expressive impetus. In each painting, the painter never stops breaking the form born from the first move. By adding successively new material, he is shaping the form.

Exhibitions selected

2016 - L'attrape- Feu, l'art réenchante le monde, École des filles, Huelgoat, Paris
2016 - Art Paris Art Fair, Galerie Françoise Livinec, Paris
2016 - NegenPuntNegen Kunstgalerij
2015 - Galerie Gaëtane DUEZ, Bruxelles / BASE Gallery / Matsuyama  Mitsukoshi
2014 - Galerie Hugo Godderis  / NegenPuntNegen Kunstgalerij
2013 - Miura Museum
2012 - Negen Punt Negen Kunstgalerij , Roeslare - Belgique
2011 - Matsuyama Mitsukoshi , Japon / Galerie Hugo Godderis, Veurne- Belgique
2010 - Ehime Prefectural Museum , Matsuyama- Japon / Base Gallery
2008 - Opus Gallery, Iyo- Japon
2007 -  Miura Museum , Matsuyama- Japon
2006 - Galerie Di Meo / Base Gallery, Tokyo
2002 - Galerie Di Meo, Paris
2001 - Base Gallery, Tokyo
2000 - Base Gallery, Tokyo
1999 - Galerie Di Meo, Paris / Base Gallery, Tokyo
1997 - Galerie Di Meo , Paris / Base Gallery, Tokyo
1996 - Kodama Gallery , Osaka
1989-1994 - Base Gallery, Tokyo
1988  - Centre Culturel de l'ambassade de Japon , Paris